Maori creationism is okay in New Zealand schools; objectors could be booted from NZ’s Royal Society

What is your point?

The point is

Both cultures mix, and benefit from each other’s cultures. (Of course not without problems, but on the whole it works pretty well).

You answered your own question. That is what I was implying. Maori culture is readily accepted by the majority white population. The irony about all this is that the Maori creation story is nearer to the truth then what is taught in nearly every university in the world. jerry

And on the core issue, yes, I agree with Coyne that putting Matauranga Maori in science curriculums is wrong. Pakeha (the descendants of the European colonists) have a learnt a lot, and have a lot more to learn from our treaty partners. But not like this. The academics' letter sparked a lively debate. But I'm not aware of anyone being threatened with job losses or anything like that. TimR

Jerry @11 and 14? What is your point? We also have Maori engaging in European art forms (symphony orchestra, opera, ballet etc). NZ's constitution is founded on a partnership. Our core constitutional document is a treaty between the Maori and the British settlers. This creates a partnership which is at the core of our society, including our legal and governmental system. Both cultures mix, and benefit from each other's cultures. (Of course not without problems, but on the whole it works pretty well). TimR

chuckdarwin:

I am neither complacent nor naive enough to ignore the Christian roots of ID ...

Except for the FACT that ID's roots are with the ancient Greeks. Look, morons, if you don't like the design inference YOU have ALL of the POWER to refute it! And all you have to do is demonstrate that blind and mindless processes are up to the task! That means all you have to do is actually support your position's claims, scientifically. Stop blaming us for YOUR failures. ET

To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

Materialism is a failed and incoherent philosophy. Getting rid of it for good would be a good thing for everyone, everywhere. ET

seversky:

IDC and its supporters are only interested in science insofar as it can be enlisted to support their religious presuppositions.

IDC exists only in the minds of the willfully ignorant. And you and yours aren't interested in science.

The Founding Father of ID, Phillip Johnson, to his credit was quite open about the religious purpose of the movement.

ID traces back to the ancient Greeks. Philip Johnson was not one of them.

Do you really think that ID proponents here would accept for one moment God being anything other that the Christian God, say, Allah or Vishnu?

I would. And it doesn't matter what one's PERSONAL opinion is. If it did then evolutionism would never be allowed in public school classrooms. ET

The debate has moved either to the Irrelevant Fallacy or to the Distraction Fallacy.

When it began revealing and inferring aspects of the natural world that were increasingly difficult to reconcile with Christian beliefs, unsurprisingly they began having second thoughts

Whether true or not this irrelevant. Why mention it except to distract. My guess this is also the Fallacy of Omission since you provide nothing. Or is it argument by irrelevant assertion?

Do you really think that ID proponents here would accept for one moment God being anything other that the Christian God, say, Allah or Vishnu? I think not

Another irrelevant argument. Has nothing to do with whether a creator is probable or not.

The Wedge document is crystalline

Absolutely irrelevant. Notice the attempt to shift the conversation away from what is being claimed or discussed. Who introduced Christianity as part of ID? Even if true, it’s irrelevant. This is an OP about Maoris. ChuckDarwin goes to the same lame approach each time and Seversky follows suit. jerry

Kairosfocus The Wedge document is crystalline:

Governing Goals -To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies. -To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

No conspiracy, no twisting, no apologist obfuscation. The document speaks for itself. chuckdarwin

Seversky, you have moved into negative credibility territory for cause. Perhaps, you need to ponder Lewontin and issues of cognitive dissonance. As for design advocates, for over a decade here on record, I -- being an Evangelical Christian and scientific thinker in my own right -- have freely pointed out that from Thaxton et al on, it is recognised that the design of cell based life per empirical evidence does not in itself point within or beyond the cosmos. I have noted that natural [= blind chance and/or mechanical necessity] is contrasted with ART-ificial, not just with supernatural. A molecular nanotech lab several generations beond Venter et al can do it. Notice how there is serious discussion of tampering to create enhanced function corona viruses and of adapting the mRNA "vaccines." I have thought, within the century, our successors will do it. Where there is extracosmic import, is cosmological fine tuning that set up physics that facilitates C-chem, aqueous medium, cell based life. And even there, we are not at an inherently good, utterly wise creator God. To go there, you look at moral government, starting with our rationality and what that says about the necessary finitely remote necessary being root of reality. Which, even then would be the generic God-concept of ethical theism. Beyond, there is considerable working through to get to the grounds of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The design inference stands on its own feet as an empirical matter, it is warranted in its own right. KF kairosfocus

CD, not only is it the case that the wedge document so beloved as a red herring and strawman at Wikipedia of no enduring influence, its meaning was twisted by . . . conspiracist accusation. In fact, though, it is not "stamping out" some innocent little lamb named "naturalism" -- doesn't the -ISM part give a clue, this is ideology here? -- that is at issue but rather identifying and duly criticising the substance behind the label. Namely, inherently self-referentially incoherent a priori imposed evolutionary materialistic scientism and associated radical secularist humanism or in some cases outright nihilism. FYI, there are no sacred cows, including those dressed in lab coats. KF PS: One of the best examples of own goal exposure by tin ear inadvertent admission is the cat out the bag remark by Prof Richard Lewontin as follows:

. . . to put a correct [--> Just who here presume to cornering the market on truth and so demand authority to impose?] view of the universe into people's heads

[==> as in, "we" the radically secularist elites have cornered the market on truth, warrant and knowledge, making "our" "consensus" the yardstick of truth . . . where of course "view" is patently short for WORLDVIEW . . . and linked cultural agenda . . . ]

we must first get an incorrect view out [--> as in, if you disagree with "us" of the secularist elite you are wrong, irrational and so dangerous you must be stopped, even at the price of manipulative indoctrination of hoi polloi] . . . the problem is to get them [= hoi polloi] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world [--> "explanations of the world" is yet another synonym for WORLDVIEWS; the despised "demon[ic]" "supernatural" being of course an index of animus towards ethical theism and particularly the Judaeo-Christian faith tradition], the demons that exist only in their imaginations,

[ --> as in, to think in terms of ethical theism is to be delusional, justifying "our" elitist and establishment-controlling interventions of power to "fix" the widespread mental disease]

and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth

[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]

. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists [--> "we" are the dominant elites], it is self-evident

[--> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . . and in fact it is evolutionary materialism that is readily shown to be self-refuting]

that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [--> = all of reality to the evolutionary materialist], and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [--> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us [= the evo-mat establishment] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [--> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door . . . [--> irreconcilable hostility to ethical theism, already caricatured as believing delusionally in imaginary demons]. [Lewontin, Billions and billions of Demons, NYRB Jan 1997,cf. here. And, if you imagine this is "quote-mined" I invite you to read the fuller annotated citation here.]

That's what you need to defend and it is unsurprising that the involved cognitive dissonance manifests as invidious projection. PPS: For the world of life, the core design inference is quite simple and based on multiple Nobel Prize winning work. In the cell, we have D/RNA. Such includes alphanumeric code strings, with algorithms, thus language and stepwise goal directed processes, executed through molecular nanotech. All, well beyond 500 - 1,000 bits of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information, FSCO/I here on. We have trillions of observations of FSCO/I being created and every time it is by intelligently directed configuration. A glance at the blind search challenge quickly shows why. Further, to get to associated von Neumann kinematic self replication, these all had to be sufficiently in place for the very first batch of generation 1 cells. Language, goal directed stepwise processes, execution machinery involving sophisticated molecular nanotech. Reliably, signatures of design. And absent the ideological imposition and associated lockout, this wouldn't even be controversial. kairosfocus

Jerry/15

ID definitely indicates the existence of a creator. The book cited barely discusses Christianity per se.

The Founding Father of ID, Phillip Johnson, to his credit was quite open about the religious purpose of the movement.

Is ChuckDarwin saying God=Christianity? A think a lot of people would disagree.

Do you really think that ID proponents here would accept for one moment God being anything other that the Christian God, say, Allah or Vishnu? I think not. Seversky

IDC and its supporters are only interested in science insofar as it can be enlisted to support their religious presuppositions. Early science was certainly fostered and encouraged in Christian Europe when it was regarded as a means of revealing the glories of God's creation. When it began revealing and inferring aspects of the natural world that were increasingly difficult to reconcile with Christian beliefs, unsurprisingly they began having second thoughts. Seversky

this year, publishes a 500-page piece of advocacy titled “Return of the God Hypothesis,” we are not as far removed from “the foolishness

How stupid is this? ID definitely indicates the existence of a creator. The book cited barely discusses Christianity per se. It does provide evidence that much science arose in Christian Europe and that is widely cited. But let’s not let truth get in the way of an irrelevant argument. How many fallacies is ChuckDarwin capable of. He’s lightning up the board with every comment. Is ChuckDarwin saying God=Christianity? A think a lot of people would disagree. Has ChuckDarwin just called good science foolishness? He may have a point there given the current ruling elite. jerry

If one is interested in Maori dancing, here is a typical poi dance. I once watched such a dance where over half the women were of European background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt35JAg3aXo jerry

AndyClue I am neither complacent nor naive enough to ignore the Christian roots of ID and the cynical strategy of the Discovery Institute as it attempts to "secularize" ID. When one of the "rock stars" of ID, Stephen Meyer, this year, publishes a 500-page piece of advocacy titled "Return of the God Hypothesis," we are not as far removed from "the foolishness" of the Wedge Document as you would suggest. As far as idol worship, the endless hagiography of Johnson portends that his canonization as the "father of ID" is immanent... chuckdarwin

@chuckdarwin:

An interesting thought experiment arises from the legacy of Phillip Johnson and the Wedge document.

Your attempt to tie intelligent design to the foolishness of the Wedge Document fails. Phillip Johnson is neither a prophet, nor an idol to anyone who is interested in the science of intelligent design. Idolworshipping is part of Christianism and Darwinism, not of science.

Would they actually “teach the controversy” (as they claim is their current goal)

Evolution is mostly compatible with intelligent design, so you probably wouldn't change much. AndyClue

There are seven seats in the NZ parliament that are elected by the Maori.

Maori make up about 16% of the population, a little more than Black Americans represent of US population. I lived in New Zealand for a year. Nearly every major public celebration had whites dressed in Maori traditional clothing and dancing to Maori music. jerry

Have ID proponents even thought this through?

ID is about truth. This implies that 1) it is not about truth and 2) someone or some group controls it. A basic misconception. So far from the truth that it indicates the commenter has no understanding of ID. jerry

An interesting thought experiment arises from the legacy of Phillip Johnson and the Wedge document. Let's say that DI's long-term strategy of stamping out the teaching of naturalism (Darwinism, materialism, physicalism, whatever you want to call it) in public schools comes to fruition. How would the ID folks write the new curriculum? Would they actually "teach the controversy" (as they claim is their current goal) or would they simply wipe evolution out of the educational canon? How would they propose to deal with science illiteracy vis a vis the rest of the developed world under this new concept of science? Have ID proponents even thought this through? chuckdarwin

Dawkins doesn't understand what science entails. He thinks the nonsensical stories he sells as books are science. ET

Blind watchmaker evolution is a thought crime. ID would be best served by partnering with people who are HONEST about what is and isn't science. ET

The ID crowd is approaching this all wrong. ID would be best served by pow-wowing with the Woke movement in a combined attempt to oust evolution from American culture, to make it a thought crime. Use some strategic thinking here, folks. As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. chuckdarwin

My guess if comes down to votes. Follow the votes.

There are seven seats in the NZ parliament that are elected by the Maori. Joe Schooner

My guess if comes down to votes. Follow the votes. jerry

Coyne objects to teaching the Maori “ways of knowing” because, "The issue is about what is true, what is not true, and how to find the truth." But alas for Coyne, 'Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming Darwinian materialism, and/or 'Methodological Naturalism', as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! Specifically, Darwinian evolution is based on the philosophy of reductive materialism. A philosophy which holds that only matter-energy, space-time, are real and that everything in the universe can be explained by reducing them down to their most basic 'material' components, i.e., atoms, molecules, photons, etc.. etc.. Yet ‘truth’ itself is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence and cannot possibly be reduced to atoms, molecules, photons, etc.. etc.. As UD blogger John_a_designer observed,

“Truth claims are propositional. That is, truth claims are stated in the form of a proposition. But what is a proposition? Where do propositions exist? What do they look like? Where are they located? How much space do they take up? How much do they weigh? How long have they existed? How and where did they originate? Obviously, these questions are absurd because propositions are not physical. But if the physical or material is all that exists as the materialist claims, which is by the way a propositional truth claim, how can such a proposition be true? How can something that doesn’t really exist, as the materialist claims, be true? Obviously that is self-refuting.” – John_a_designer

i.e. "Truth" can't be physically measured, but can only be 'seen' by the intellect, (by the immaterial mind), and therefore, on the premises of Darwinian materialism, 'truth' simply does not exist. i.e. How much does the concept of ‘truth’ weigh? Can you put the concept of ‘truth’ in a test tube? Does the concept of ‘truth’ give off an electromagnetic spectrum? If so, what are its primary colors? Does the concept of ‘truth’ weigh more in English or in Chinese? How long is the concept of ‘truth’ in millimeters? How fast does the concept of ‘truth’ go? Is the concept of ‘truth’ faster or slower than the speed of light? Is the concept of ‘truth’ positively or negatively charged? Or etc.. etc.. etc... ?.. That entire line of questioning is simply ludicrous! Clearly 'truth' is not a material object, and/or force, that we can ever hope to subject to rigorous physical measurement. Clearly ‘truth’ is a property that must be apprehended, solely and exclusively, by an intellect, i.e. by an immaterial mind ! Thus for Coyne, a diehard reductive materialist, who believes he is a meat robot with the 'illusion' of free will,,,,

“You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” Jerry Coyne – No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20 THE ILLUSION OF FREE WILL - Sam Harris - 2012 Excerpt: "Free will is an illusion so convincing that people simply refuse to believe that we don’t have it." - Jerry Coyne https://samharris.org/the-illusion-of-free-will/ Of note: That statement by Coyne should literally be the number one example of a self-refuting argument that is given in philosophy 101 classes.

,,, Thus for Coyne, a diehard reductive materialist, to claim that science is about "how to find the truth" is especially ironic. As far as Coyne's own worldview of Darwinian evolution is concerned with ever 'finding truth', (and as the old joke goes), “You can’t get there from here”.

1. For a worldview to possibly 'find the truth', it must first be able to ground the abstract and immaterial concept of truth. 2. Darwinian materialism is completely unable to ground the abstract and immaterial concept of truth within its reductive materialistic framework. 3. Darwinian evolution, therefore, cannot possibly 'find the truth', nor can it even possibly ever be a 'true' worldview.

You don't have to take my word for it, (as Nancy Pearcey pointed out in the following article based on her book "Finding Truth"), Darwinists themselves have, in a round about way, basically admitted that Darwin's theory cannot provide a coherent basis for the abstract and immaterial concept of 'truth'

Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself - Nancy Pearcey - March 8, 2015 Excerpt: An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value. But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth — which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide. Astonishingly, many prominent thinkers have embraced the theory without detecting the logical contradiction. Philosopher John Gray writes, “If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true,… the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth.” What is the contradiction in that statement? Gray has essentially said, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it “serves evolutionary success, not truth.” In other words, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true. Self-referential absurdity is akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: “This statement is a lie.” If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie. Another example comes from Francis Crick. In The Astonishing Hypothesis, he writes, “Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive.” But that means Crick’s own theory is not a “scientific truth.” Applied to itself, the theory commits suicide. Of course, the sheer pressure to survive is likely to produce some correct ideas. A zebra that thinks lions are friendly will not live long. But false ideas may be useful for survival. Evolutionists admit as much: Eric Baum says, “Sometimes you are more likely to survive and propagate if you believe a falsehood than if you believe the truth.” Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion — and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value. So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself. - Nancy Pearcey. (author of) "Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism Secularism, and Other God Substitutes" https://evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar/

Of related note, since our immaterial minds can discover ‘eternal truths’ about being, and yet our own immaterial minds came into being, i.e. are 'contingent', and are, therefore, obviously not eternally existent, then it necessary follows that there must exist an eternal mind which has always existed in which these eternal truths reside. i.e. for ‘eternal truth’ to always exist, the Mind of God must first necessarily exist!

Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God – Peter Kreeft 11. The Argument from Truth This argument is closely related to the argument from consciousness. It comes mainly from Augustine. 1. Our limited minds can discover eternal truths about being. 2. Truth properly resides in a mind. 3. But the human mind is not eternal. 4. Therefore there must exist an eternal mind in which these truths reside. https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#11

And please note that the preceding argument for God from the existence of eternal truth meshes extremely well with the fact that the 'eternal truths' that we discover in mathematics are, via Godel, now shown to be ‘incomplete’, i.e. the ‘eternal truths’ of mathematics are now shown to have a contingent existences, not a necessary existence.

THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS – DAVID P. GOLDMAN – August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel’s critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/08/the-god-of-the-mathematicians There is a Hole at the Bottom of Math – video https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/is-there-a-hole-at-the-bottom-of-math/

Af supplemental note:

KEEP IT SIMPLE by Edward Feser – April 2020 Excerpt: Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-­divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our ­experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order. How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind. Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple

Also of supplemental note:

Jesus Christ as the correct “Theory of Everything” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpn2Vu8–eE

Verse:

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

bornagain77

Coyne's own narrow view that only atheists can be scientists, and those like him, have opened the door to their own removal in time. All that should matter is the ability to do the job, which atheists cannot even defend. Anyone who disagrees with them has been shunned. BobRyan

Coyne is getting more and more tangled up in cognitive dissonance. Opening school to a wider variety of historical stories is GOOD, no matter which stories are opened right now. After students are exposed to the Maori creation, students will find it much easier to see other creation stories on their own. If they're never exposed to ANY reality, they will easily reject ALL unofficial stories. This also applies to CRT. If students hear two crappy theories instead of one crappy theory, they will pick up the notion that history can be seen several ways. Grasping the variability of history is VASTLY more important than memorizing either of the crappy false theories. polistra